So, I found this annoyingly underreported story.

The UN Development Fund, designed to assist in humanitarian needs by improving infrastructure, has been paying North Korea in "hard currency," (likely US dollars, British Pounds, and more recently, Euros) at their insistence, in violation of UN rules. It is estimated that US$90 mil has been diverted into the general North Korea budget, which means that $30 mil of UN funds, or $7.5 mil of US taxpayer dollars has gone to sponsor North Korean military and weapon development budgets.

That's bad, right? Unfortunately, that's the tolerable part of it all. The UN knew this and did not disclose it. The UN's official stance is that it was lost in a bureaucratic morass. The specific bureaucracy that dropped the ball used the flimsy excuse of not wanting to single out any particular nation. I think anyone with any modicum of common sense, which we all hope UN auditor supervisor are, would see that that isn't a believable excuse. Corruption, anyone?

Oh, but we know this, so the UN eventually came clean, right? No. A US official, doing what US officials do best, bullied the UN into letting us see a whole slew of unreleased documents and came across this gem that'd been sitting in a filing cabinet since 1999, when the UN audits of North Korea conveniently stopped. The US broke the story, then the UN felt the need to respond wholeheartedly.

Here's hoping that Mr. Ban shows more potential than his predecessor, eh?

Sources (in recommended order of viewing)

Video (scroll to Corruption Scandal)
Fox News story. No sign of it anywhere on MSNBC or CNN. Shame.
UN response to the media. DPRK is North Korea.
Denser reading--US letter to the UN breaking the story.

No surprises, they did the same thing for Iraq.

Just remember, it isn't right to deny a government with poor starving people money to feed those poor starving people, even if the government won't actually use the money to feed anyone. Maybe they will be overwhelmed by our kindness and change thier ways!

No, I think the issue is that the UN could and should have delivered food and medical supplies valued at $90 million dollars, rather than cash which could be spent on the military we oppose.

Yes, China tries that as well, and Kim Jung Ill has a very nice pantry becuase of it.

In what bizzaro world do you go "Well, when we send him food and medicine, he keeps him.. so lets send him cash! maybe then he'll feed his people!" gimme a break.

The only time aide has ever succesfully been given to the poor masses is when the aide is backed up with military pressence giving said aide out. And often even then, people are shot at for trying to get the aide.

Just remember, when people in North Korea were eatting the bark off of trees, they were told that the rest of the world was in a worse famine than they were.

In what bizzaro world do people think that bypassing UN sanctiend trade embargos helps anybody?


My first post was sarcastic.

And all the peasants in NK should what, just starve? Or maybe the UN should just step back and let America march into NK, bring Freedomâ„¢ and Democracyâ„¢, be greeted as liberators and go home?

That's the only thing you CAN expect from the UN anymore. Maybe this new South Korean guy they have will be helpful.

Or you know, you could follow the agreements you put forth so that North Korea doesn't just laugh at them knowing that they will get anything they want anyways.

Or you could accept the peasants as refugess and help them leave the country. Why pay for 90 Million dollars to go into North Korea, when you can spend those 90 million taking people out of North Korea.

I know that that is what Israel did for people in Russia, Etheopia, Pakistan, India and many other countries where people were either starving or being pillaged.

That's assuming one can get out of North Korea in the first place.

Yes. Because Israel is an excellent example of well-executed foreign diplomacy which leaves them with few enemies.

The NK government is almost entirely separate from its people - no pressure, good or bad, on its people will affect it. Therefore I'm all for giving them aide, so they don't suffer just because their oppressors have guns and they don't.

Now, the issue of using money instead of supplies is an important one. That's something I'd like to see addressed.

When Israel took people out of Russia in the 80's they were not allowed to leave, same with Ethopia.

Countries have ways of doing these things when they want to.

Those situations are not comparable to North Korea.

So far as I can tell, the only way that it doesn't apply is that North Korea has a stable government and bigger guns than most of the world. Except Israel, of course. Those people are beastly.

No one's going to be making "adjustments" to the North Korean regime any time soon, though. I'm more disconcerted about UN complacency in this whole thing. The government did not accept aid in the form of checks. Only cash. Only local cash, and the won isn't a forex currency. You buy won from the government owned central bank. Contrary to protocol.

All of the people designated to distribute UN aid are North Koreans appointed by the North Korean government. Foreign aid workers are not allowed. Contrary to protocol.

Then the UN auditors found out. The audit was swept under the rug and the audits ceased.

I appreciate the Secretary-General's intent in ordering a global audit of all UN spending, but, er...is it really possible to really, truly, deeply audit something of that scope? I hope I'm wrong, but I'm inclined to believe no.

I'd just like to say that when Israel was taking people out of Russia, nobody thought it would be possible, many of the people taken out of the country were in jails and the Iron Curtain was at its peak.

There are always ways to do things if people want them done. However in the case of North Korea, I know that China does not want them and South Korea does not want them, and nobody else in the world really cares enough to take them out either.


Lets just hope the new guy isn't as corrupt as Koffi was.